Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune.

Francis Quarles (1592–1644) was a prominent English poet of the early Stuart period, best known for his moral and devotional verse and for emblem literature that paired terse maxims with spiritual reflection. Writing through the political and religious tensions that culminated in the English Civil War, Quarles repeatedly stresses practical piety, self-government, and the testing of character under pressure. This sentence belongs to that tradition of sententious counsel: it frames courage not as a natural temperament but as something produced by circumstance—when action becomes necessary, hesitation and fear are displaced by the demands of the moment, and decisive resolve is portrayed as the kind of virtue that “fortune” tends to reward.

The aphorism argues that fear thrives in contemplation, but diminishes once a person is compelled to act. “Necessity” functions as a moral and psychological catalyst: when delay is no longer possible, the mind stops rehearsing dangers and commits to execution. The second clause—“makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune”—adds a classical, almost Machiavellian note: luck is imagined as partial to decisiveness. Quarles’s larger moral outlook typically treats providence and “fortune” as forces that test and reveal virtue; here, he suggests that resolute action not only overcomes fear but also creates the conditions in which success becomes more likely.